Winter Indoor Grow - Autos in SCROG

I'll sprout the seeds using the paper towel method to start with. Then, I'm going to plant the seeds directly in the 10 gallon pots to avoid transplanting. This is my first time using this SCROG set up. I'm not entirely sure how many plants to put in. I'm going to try 4 and we will see if I come to regret putting so many. TEMPERATURE: I need to sort out the high temperature in my grow room. I have LED lights, and two 4" inline fans plus two oscillating fans. It doesn't seem to be enough to keep the room cool. I'm hoping that with winter temperatures it will be a bit easier to manage. GNATS: My last indoor grow (several months ago) was plagued by gnats. I used sticky fly tape and soapy spray but it wasn't enough. Fingers are crossed that this go round will be better. I'll be looking at using neem oil when I get desperate...

Just waiting on the Strawberry Cheese Cake to come out of the dirt. The Onyx has not shed her seed case... Northern Light and LSD are well on their way 😊

My girls are growing nicely in spite of humidity and temperature at less than ideal values. I have a pretty big light... MarsHydro II 1600 and it's heating my grow room up to 30C if I'm not careful. I still can't get my humidity up over 30% for any length of time. Today I spend time sealing up the interior of the room so that I could keep humidity in. I'm going to adjust my inline fans too. I currently have 2 inline fans but maybe it's too much. I'll turn one off to see if that makes a difference. I added a cool mist humidifier but I'm starting to think it's too small for the room.

Found two larvae in my plants... you can see they were munching on the leaves! I picked off the ones I could find and sprayed with insecticidal soap. Only two plants had signs of pests... the other two don’t have the bugs. You can see the Northern Lights Auto was not tolerating the heat, while the LSD Auto is perfectly happy.

The plants are growing well. The room humidity is at 40-45% depending on time of day. The room temp is around 28C with some upward fluctuations depending lights. Right now only the grow lights are switched on, not the bloom lights. I will need to bring the temps down a bit before we turn on the bloom cuz the temp jumps up to 30C when they are all fully powered on. Still some work to do there. I'm hoping that with winter bringing down the external temps, it will help with the grow room temp. I'm prepared to improve ventilation if needed. Since I'm using a soil/peat/vermiculite mix, and since the plants are getting big, I have increased/doubled my nutrient concentration. We are only a couple of weeks from flowering. Very exciting!!! The Norther Lights Auto show ZERO branching at all and a bit of leaf pigment abnormality. Weird.

Of the four plants Barney's LSD Auto is the most vivacious, with the Strawberry Cheesecake and Onyx only a week or so behind. The Northern Lights Auto is very disappointing with absolutely no branching...and some discolouration in the leaves. If she doesn't show some branching after topping, I'm going to pull her and grow a different plant. Real estate in my grow room is in high demand and I won't waste it on a dud plant :D

I pulled the plug on the mutant Northern Lights Auto. I'm going to start a new seed to replace her :D The LSD Auto and the Strawberry Cheesecake Auto are all flowering now. Nutrients have been swapped to bloom and I added a dash of Big Bud. The Onyx isn't quite there yet... she'll need a few more days. I LOVE the LSD Auto... she's huge with prolific buds. Her leaves are not as thick and waxy as the other varieties... not sure why... they feel papery or like felt... not smooth and waxy. The Onyx and Strawberry are looking super healthy and buds are starting to come in. All of the plants show plenty of branching and loads of bud sites.

They are full of blooms now, and looking really good. There are some early signs of CalMag deficiency, so I added a touch to their morning water today. Still struggling to keep the temps down... I don't want to cook off terpenes. The colder winter temps are cooling the house right down, and I have purchased a 6" fan and filter upgrade. Planning to install it this weekend. I'm going to put a new baby seed in to take the place of the mutant Northern Lights that was pulled out last week. New seeds are always so fun!! I have a lot of varieties to pick from thanks to GrowDiaries and the sponsors 😬

The buds are fattening up nicely now. The Strawberry Cheesecake Auto likes temperatures *over* 26C. When the temps go any lower she starts to wilt... I've never seen a plant do that before, but keeping the temp between 27-28C keeps her happy. The other two plants are not as fussy. I have pushed the limits for the amount of nutrients my LSD Auto will tolerate LOL... you can see a bit of burned leaf tips. I'll back off a bit now. I'm happy with her growth... I have changed the lights to 24/0 to keep the temp in the room more consistent. With winter here now in full force, the grow room is no longer over heating. We have the humidity completely sorted out with the two (one small and one medium) cool mist humidifiers. It's all smooth sailing now, and the buds are prevalent, and fragrant. I'm really happy with this grow.

These LSD Auto buds are already looking ripe! They appear to be two full weeks ahead of the other two plants that were germinated at the same time. I'm considering cutting some buds down this weekend... I don't like a lot of amber in my buds... maybe I'll keep a few colas up and only take a few down. Ack there isn't room in my SCROG for all 6 plants that are currently competing for space. The Onyx Auto is looking like a monster. I didn't expect that! She's a bit slower, but she's ALL buds. ALL over. The Strawberry Cheesecake is turning out to be fussy. She was looking for extra CalMag and she didn't like it too hot (also cuz of calmag) but you can really see the evidence in her top leaves. I have that sorted now but she was not easy like the other plants.

This is an easy plant to grow. She was quick from seed to harvest. The vibe creeps up on you so watch out! She's dried now and set to cure in brown paper bags for a few weeks. This one is a winner.

The Strawberry Cheesecake remains difficult to please. I suspect she is not tolerating the radiation from the lights... the Mars II is intense, and she is growing taller than I was expecting/hoping. The buds look healthy but the leaves are struggling with moderate burns. I'm going to have to LST to pull her down out of the light, and I will also see what I can do to lift my light up. I think I have around 5" of space between the light and the rafters. The Onyx on the other hand is growing like mad. She's perfectly happy and her buds are blowing up right now :) I have love for Onyx that I didn't realize I would have. This is a blooming love affair 😍

These two ladies are ripening up in spite of over exposure to light radiation LOL. I have raised the light as high as it will go in my crawl space, but the plants grew a bit too tall. The leaves show signs of heat stress but the buds are fattening up nicely nonetheless. I have been harvesting Strawberry Cheesecake little by little (around 50 g wet so far representing about 1/4 of the plant) and we vaped a tester last night. She's a kickers indica dominant strain with amazing aroma and flavour. Can't wait to get her all cured up! I'll be harvesting the rest of the Strawberry Cheesecake Auto this week. Stay tuned for a harvest post. The Onyx is still ripening... she need a week more at least.

Wanna know what light burn looks like? Well, here you go :) The grow room is officially under renovations after this grow is done. I need to fix the radiation problem. This plant will be harvested this week. The Strawberry Cheesecake was harvested this week. Stay tuned for her harvest entry...

This is our new favourite variety!! It took a long time to find a variety that I prefer over Purple Kush (did I even say that out loud?). The plant was easy to grow with respectable yield, and a quick flowering time. She did suffer some light burn, but this doesn't seem to have had a bad affect on the finished product. She is a resilient variety based on my experience. Overall this was an easy growing plant, with an average yield, but an amazingly fun body and mind buzz that starts out a bit energetic and then fades to a super relaxing stoned feeling. I harvested this plant in two main batches to allow lower buds to ripen up a bit more. It was my first time using this approach and I was happy with the result. The buds dried nicely over the course of two weeks. I have put them aside to cure in paper bags after that I'll set them up in mason jars with humidity packs. I won't be sharing this one... it's all for me :D I have two more seeds and I can't wait to grow them ASAP :)

It's not super strong... and it's a well balanced hybrid. Easy to grow. Good yield. Flavour is mello and earthy and not sweet. The bud has been properly dried and is off to cure now.